bit stealing game

Chapter 15 Egypt’s first organized Chinese archaeological team

Returning to the construction site of the Chinese archaeological team in the Karnak Temple gave me an unreal feeling.

When I left last year, the temple was covered with white dampened plastic sheets. The vast white sheet was stained with wind and sand, like the shroud of the powerful Egyptian empire in the past.

Egypt has entered the excavation season in October. Last year there were only two exploratory chambers, the east and west, but now the entire Maat Temple has been excavated and turned into a group of exploratory chambers.

The Chinese archaeological team in Egypt adopts a rotation system, which is to pool the strengths of everyone. Except for the team leader and the other two permanent teachers, Teacher Wen and Teacher Liang, the number of archaeologists who come to Egypt is different every year. Last year, I witnessed

Teacher Liu who discovered the underground ruins did not come to Egypt again. This time it was Teacher Wang who took me as an intern. Teacher Wang is a pottery expert from the SX Provincial Institute of Archeology, and the other two from the SX Provincial Institute are Teacher Xin who specializes in city site research.

and Teacher Ji who has rich excavation experience.

In addition to us, the members of this year's archaeological team also include a family of dogs who have been recruited. Needless to say, these dogs are really good at taking care of things. Our team of explorers is no longer dug up by wild dogs every night, nor is

Another incident occurred where a dog hid bones at a site, leading to an unexpected archaeological discovery.

We know from the archaeological records of the last century that the French archaeological team also had a black and white dog named Henry. If our team of dogs has a heritage, it should be at least Henry IX, but we all

Call her by her nickname: Maomao. Maomao got her name from Ma'at's feathers, after all, the Ma'at temple is her territory.

As one of the pinnacles of ancient civilization, many people have imagined Egypt, and archaeologists and explorers are flocking to it. Currently, there are about 250 international archaeological teams conducting research, excavation and protection of cultural relics in Egypt.

There are more than ten branches in the Luxor area.

Separated from us by a wall is the French archaeological team. The current French team is completely different from what it was 70 or 80 years ago. Originally, their excavation at the Sekhmet Temple was nearing completion, but this year there was no

The excavation permit was obtained. So the archaeologists could only look at it but could not break ground.

Of course, there is a certain reason why Egypt is so strict about archaeological permits. After all, Egypt once went through a period of chaos.

In the 1940s and 1950s, the French Oriental Archaeological Institute carried out systematic archaeological excavations in the Karnak Mentu Temple area for the first time. However, this was during the period of World War II and the Egyptian War of Independence, and social turmoil made archaeological excavations and research

It had to be completed in a hurry, and many site information could not be recorded and preserved in time. Coupled with the smuggling of countless cultural relics, Egypt cannot be too cautious.

The fate between us Chinese and Egypt can be traced back to Mr. Xia Nai, the first archaeologist of New China. Mr. Xia Nai came to Egypt 80 years ago, and 80 years later the excavation team of our National Archaeological Institute came here.

In the past, many Chinese archaeologists came to Egypt to participate in excavations, but most of them came with archaeological teams from other countries. Now, we have the first established team of Chinese archaeologists.

Archeology in modern Egypt respects family inheritance, and the Luxor area is managed by the Menistavi family.

The name Menistawe was given to the family by Flinders Petrie, a British archaeologist known as the father of modern archaeology, when he came to Egypt for archaeology more than a hundred years ago. This family named by the British

In the next more than a century, he worked conscientiously in charge of the archaeological work in the Luxor area. When Mr. Xia Nai came, it was Menistawe, and it was also Menistawe who cooperated with the Chinese archaeological team more than 70 years later. Now this beautiful place

Nistawi has cooperated with archaeological teams from more than 30 countries who came to Egypt for archaeology, and inherited the Egyptian archaeological enterprise that his ancestors had been running.

Dealing with the Egyptians requires skills, especially the iron-clad Menistavian archaeological team.

When they first arrived in Egypt, the Chinese team adhered to the principle of doing things according to the rules, and the progress was pushed back again and again. First, they cut down all the unsightly trees around the construction site, then built an office space, and there were countless other tasks. Anyway,

It was never my turn to discover it.

In the first year after arriving, the archaeological team attended a lecture given by an Italian archaeologist. The man who spent 28 years excavating a tomb in the Valley of the Kings said that 20 of those years were spent dealing with modern Egyptians, and left

Only a fraction was given to ancient Egypt.

Later, a French archaeologist communicated with us and taught us a lot of skills in getting along with the Egyptians. It made us feel that these Europeans had also been well polished by Arab wisdom. The Frenchman beat his chest and wished he could get along early.

Born more than a century ago, I missed the world that was rampant in Egypt.

When the French withdrew from Luxor during World War II, they thought they would be able to fight back in a few days. Who would have thought that the wait would take more than half a century, and the Ma'at Temple they controlled at the time also belonged to the Chinese archaeological team

Carry out excavations. This year the French archaeological team did not even get permission to excavate.

The Austrian team that was excavating near the Holy Lake today wanted to find archaeological materials left by the French in the last century. Since our construction site was also excavated by the French, we went together to see if we could find anything.

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I have to say that the Egyptians' preservation of archaeological records is really disorganized. In fact, not only the records, but also the cultural relics themselves are not cared for much. The two statues of Ramses II were still on both sides of the doorway. Last year we took a stroll.

Sometimes you can see arms and legs. If you look for them, you can probably pick them up in the grass and put them together. They look like Osiris in the ancient Egyptian legend. When I went around again this year, I couldn't find them.

We and the Austrian team spent a long time digging out the archaeological records of the French in the last century in the warehouse. When we opened it, all the notes were: "I ate garlic bread today and it was a little undercooked" and "Red Sea".

"How to prepare fish in various ways" and other food notes, there is no record of the excavation of the temple, let alone the underground building.

I was still hoping to see something in the French team's notes, but now I only get the jealousy of others seeing the delicacies of heaven and earth.

But speaking of it, our archaeological team occasionally has Red Sea fish to eat, but of course we cannot be as luxurious as the French. Our Red Sea fish was sent by Little Menistawi. He has friends all over the Arab countries, not to mention in Egypt.

In order to save time and cost, the archaeological team hired a chef to take charge of lunch and dinner for the team members. Our chef has not changed since last year. He knew that I was allergic to seafood, so he fried the Red Sea fish for me when it was served.

I ate a lot of chicken to satisfy my craving.

Except for me who just returned to the team recently, the other members of the archaeological team have been in Egypt for more than two months. Since they can't eat pork, everyone has a lot of fat in their stomachs. So when I was eating alone, I vaguely gained something.

Some coveted looks. I knew without looking that it must be Lou Shiqi.

There are two interns on the archaeological team this year. Besides me, it’s Lou Shiqi.

Although Lou Shiqi is known as an intern, he has rich experience in modeling and big data applications, and he can be regarded as the technical backbone of their institute. I asked the teachers in the team privately and was told that if it weren’t for Lou Shiqi and their archeology

So since he didn’t have much money, he wouldn’t come as a student intern. He asked me to learn more from him.

Indeed, I have too little experience in field archeology. However, Shi Qi is not much older than me. Although there must be a teacher of three in a threesome, I am still a little unhappy to call a young man a teacher. Moreover, he looks more childish.

Some of them looked like they were well taken care of, which may have something to do with the atmosphere in their workplace where they are all elders.

When I first joined the archaeological team this year, I saw a person whose name was shiqi lou in our China-Egypt archaeological group chat.

What the hell was I thinking, the seventeenth floor? So I asked, "Who is this? Why did he write down his own floor?"

Only then did I realize that this was Lou Shilin. I like to tease people, so I just called him Qi Qi, and occasionally I would call him Teacher Xiao Lou'er on purpose.

Lou Shiqi was not angry at all. When I complained about his name, he retorted: "Wang Yu, your name burns your lips just to say it."

I said it was calculated based on the birth date and horoscope. He said, did you calculate that the Five Elements lacked fire? I said it looked like you had failed to fulfill the Eight Diagrams.

Anyway, we are close in age and both of us are not very virtuous, so we gradually became friends.

Not finding any useful information in the French records, the team leader was not very disappointed. Rather than finding other people's information, they were more willing to dig it out from scratch.

Archeology, archeology, marking out the soil.

Unlike tomb robbers, archaeologists want to restore the truth of civilization, so they do not only focus on stunning cultural relics. Sometimes they excavate living areas. Although there are no priceless treasures, they can be contained in the soil at different levels.

The material, combined with the color and texture of the soil, can be used to determine the past experience of this layer. Last year, the team leader relied on this ability to identify where the dogs buried their bones.

Archeology is like a jigsaw puzzle, except that what is presented in the end is not a picture, but a civilization. But unlike a bought jigsaw puzzle, there are always missing links in archeology. I feel regretful every time I pass by the multi-column hall.

I don't have the spatial construction ability that is very practical for archaeologists. I can't piece together the royal capital from the ruins, nor can I imagine the magnificent temple buildings of the past from these ruins.

For the missing parts of historical fragments, we can only infer the unknown from the known. This is also part of the post-processual interpretation of archeology. The interpretation of ancient civilizations is based on cultural relics and records, and respects the appearance of local civilization rather than using a Western framework

Defined civilization is the standard. But even if the inferences are based on experience and existing evidence, there are risks in interpreting the unknown.

Excavation is a meticulous job, and sometimes it is a boring job. The soil must be removed layer by layer, and you must not keep digging down one place. Even if you find a cultural relic, such as the statue of Osiris last time,

We also have to wait until the bottom layer of soil where the statue is is scraped before we can pick it up. Because if we rashly dig down in search of cultural relics, we will destroy the relationship between the strata and affect the judgment of the functions of different stratigraphic planes.

So the pottery jar we dug out the year before last had its belly exposed last year, and it was already in the display cabinet this year.

In my free time, I like to stand on the Ma'at Temple and overlook the entire construction site.

In the past, Arabs did not know about ancient Egypt, but now scholars can even restore the voices of priests thousands of years ago by recovering mummy muscle tissue. We are obviously further away from the era of ancient Egypt than the Arabs who came to this land in the sixth century AD, but

Technology and exploration allow us to know more.

So with the development of science and technology, we know more about the earth, will we discover earlier civilizations?

I want to see what the world was like in the past. The future will come, but the past will not repeat itself. If I can see the different civilizations of this world in different eras and places, then this life will be truly worthwhile.

This year, Ahmed, who I worked with on the same expedition last year, has rich experience in excavation. He once excavated the military camp of Thutmose III in the desert in the west. We occasionally do this when we are not busy at work.

We chatted for a while, and he became quite familiar with it. After all, I am not from a professional background, and my understanding of Egypt is not as deep as the locals. In addition, Ahmed is a very experienced archaeologist, so I kept pestering him to ask questions.

Issues include but are not limited to archaeological work, local customs, etc.

Ahmed also told me about his time in the army. He served in the Egyptian Air Force before becoming an archaeologist, and one of his skills was survival in the desert. I heard a lot about the Sahara Desert from him.

Illustrated guide to edible small animals.

I remembered the immersive 4D short movie in the Pillar Hall, and asked Ahmed: "Did the Nile River flow through the Pillar Hall in the past?"

"Not only the pillared hall, but the entire Karnak Temple was once the Nile Valley."

Ahmed said that when he was excavating at the gate of Karnak Temple in the 1990s, he could still produce water with just a few shovels. This is no longer the case now, and human beings have very effective in transforming nature. After all, let alone Aswan.

Dams, even the Fuxing Dam have been repaired.

Four thousand years ago, the Pharaoh's small wharf was connected to the canal and the Nile River. Boats carrying sacrifices passed through the temple. The place we are currently excavating was also washed by the Nile River at different times. Countless layers have been uncovered here.

The soil is mixed with evidence of the Nile flowing through it many times.

I recalled the suffocating experience and nodded with lingering fear.

Because of the hot weather in Egypt, the daily excavation time is from 7 a.m. to 12 noon. We usually have breakfast cooked by everyone in turn at the station before going to the construction site. But regardless of what we ate in the morning, we face the loess back.

We were so excited that we were already ravenous before twelve o'clock. So every day around ten o'clock we would have a special Egyptian snack on the construction site. This snack has not changed since two years ago.

They are all flatbread-wrapped Farafa salad. Farafa is a kind of vegetable dumpling-like food. It still has a unique flavor when you first eat it, but you can’t resist eating it for dozens of days. Once I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I asked Lou Shiqi to eat it.

He took a bottle of Laoganma to the construction site in his inventory. It turned out that the Egyptian colleagues liked the hotness more than we did.

Before Lou Shiqi arrived, he packed most of the boxes of food under the guidance of his seniors. Among them, the most popular ones were not snacks and ham sausages, but Lao Gan Ma and pickled mustard. I myself don’t like spicy food.

, but I couldn’t stand the fact that the dishes here in Egypt were single and bland. So when I saw Lou Shiqi taking out Lao Ganma, my eyes turned green. This hot woman who saved the taste made our friendship stronger.

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After dinner, I went back to Tanfang and continued scraping the soil.

The exploration area on the east side is relatively deep, already more than three meters long. During the excavation process, a stone was specially left to make it easier to get up and down. But even so, it is not easy to go out. I stepped on the stone like a meerkat.

I looked around and saw that there were no Chinese players around, but there was an Egyptian young man passing by pushing a cart filled with soil.

I stopped him and said in the Arabic I only knew: "Please give me a brush, thank you."

When the Arab young man heard my poor Arabic, he showed a somewhat surprised expression. After he put the car down and Tan Fang next door brought me a brush, I thanked him again. The young man blinked shyly,

The eyelashes were cast into long shadows by the sun.

After I finished sweeping the soil, I found no one was coming, so I crawled out of the pit.

There was a sacrificial pit at the temple ruins of the 26th Dynasty in the west, and everyone gathered around to take a look. When no one was paying attention, I sneaked to the underground building that I slapped out last year and circled it twice.

This building has obviously been excavated. The soil inside has been cleared out, and it looks like a temple. The excavation traces extend northward toward the Maat Temple. What I accidentally discovered last year was just

In the outer room of the temple, the main body should be under the Maat Temple.

According to Ali, this temple is dedicated to the god who can turn human blood into gold.

The archaeological team previously conducted lake-sample sediment tests here. The southeast corner wall of the Ma'at Temple should have been under the Nile River during the Middle Kingdom. The reason why the Ma'at Temple was able to be built on an underground building was mainly because it was

It is buried under thick soil, but if you have to uncover all the soil rashly, firstly, the Ma'at Temple above will collapse without its load-bearing, and secondly, if it is exposed to the air, it may damage the cultural relics inside the building.

and reliefs. Therefore, the archaeological team only dug one entrance and prepared to go in first to see the situation. If by chance the French had excavated this temple last century, then we would not have to be too cautious.

There had been several months of excavation and research here before I came. The China-Egypt archaeological team initially believed that the underground building should be a temple belonging to the Eighteenth Dynasty. I don’t know if I can see the god Ali mentioned after entering.

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While I was poking around outside the half-opened temple, Lou Shiqi came over. He wore a triangle scarf like a red scarf. It turned out that he was doing preliminary direction mapping for the final excavation.

I asked: "Can you simulate the general situation of the temple below without excavation?"

Lou Shiqi began to murmur: "Your words will definitely not work, but mine will. Now we can use ultrasonic body waves to measure the thickness information of the building underneath, and it can be done with infrared imaging."

I snorted and prepared to go back to the exploration area to continue scraping the soil. Anyway, I couldn't see the reason now. Since the final excavation was about to take place here, I was just waiting to dig in.

When Lou Shiqi saw that I was about to leave, he hurriedly said, "Hey, why did you leave just like that?" His Mandarin had a soft and waxy feel to it, and he couldn't tell where his accent came from, so he blindly guessed that he was from the south.

I said: "Isn't this a stage for you?"

Lou Shiqi waved at me and asked me to come over. After I walked back, he pointed to the underground temple mysteriously: "When I first came here, I heard that someone single-handedly brought the temple to light, and it was you, right?

?" It turns out that after I left last year, there were rumors about me collapsing the ground with my righteousness.

"Do you want to become the protagonist of the legend?" I asked him.

Lou Shiqi tilted his head and looked at me defensively: "I will not destroy cultural relics. If you want to destroy cultural relics, I will not protect you."

I walked over, leaned into his ear and said maliciously: "Pushing you down as a sacrifice does not count as destroying cultural relics."

Lou Shiqi thought for a while and nodded: "That's right. I'm not as heavy as you. I definitely can't crush the temple."

This guy is really good when he wants to annoy people. I pulled him away and turned around to leave. He still said from behind: "Hey, don't you want to try it?"

I ended the conversation with my middle finger.

The days in the archaeological team are monotonous and fulfilling. In addition to the actual excavation, one of our other tasks is to record the excavation.

I sat next to the Temple of Ma'at, describing the Exploration Group and the newly discovered planes today one stroke at a time. There are traces of dovetails on the stone next to me, which shows that they were also used when building temples in Egypt.

Mortise and tenon technique.

A cloud happened to come. I raised my head and moved my cervical vertebrae, and several swallows flew over my head.

These little animals are tough travelers, and they may have flown over from the UK to spend the winter, since spring comes earlier in Egypt after all.

In addition to Egyptian archaeologists, we also have old technicians and workers helping with excavations at our construction site. These old technicians all come from a village called Gufti. When Europeans first came to Egypt, they were searching in that village.

workers. Later, after training, the entire village became experienced craftsmen, and they were passed down from generation to generation.

Most Egyptian workers wear Arabic robes on the construction site. I like it very much when the old technicians stand up straight and dust off the soil on their robes at the end of the work. With that shake, it seems that thousands of years of time have been shaken off carelessly.

Basically, the sun shines over the Nile every day. However, once the sun is blocked by clouds, it will be very cold. Only then can I have the real feeling of being in winter.

It was noon again that day, but the sun was still hidden behind the clouds.

Teacher Wang packed up his things and said to me: "Hurry up and leave. The team leader and others have to pick up people at the airport in the afternoon. If they are late, they will not have time to eat."

On the banks of the Nile, swallows hovered over the ruins of the temple where the shroud had been lifted.

Guess who the leader went to pick up

[Menistawi is more like ancient Egyptian than Arabic, meaning Menes of the Two Lands. Menes was the founding pharaoh of ancient Egypt, and Tawi merged the meaning of Upper and Lower Egypt in ancient Egyptian. Egypt

The king's name of the pharaoh will reflect the situation at that time. For example, the lord of the two lands or the person who united the two lands, these are the founding pharaohs after the chaotic period. The more common ones are the people who brought peace, etc.]

[A necessary skill in archaeology is to be able to identify different layers. For example, if you scrape the shovel flatly and find that the color of the soil is different from before, then you need to scrape a few more times to find where the boundary is.

In addition to color, soil quality is also important. For example, the soil dug out when digging a hole and then backfilled into the hole will have a different soil quality than the original soil that has not been dug. The soil that has been soaked in river water is also different from the soil that has been exposed to the sun.

.Then there are the inclusions in the soil. The teachers in the team told me that when they were students, it took them a long time just to scrape the soil and look at the stratigraphy. These people explained the land with shovel after shovel.

Accumulated.]

(End of chapter)